Kate
by Winter-sama
Summary: She's not sure when she stopped being the detective and started being just 'Kate'.  Another introspective piece and in some respects, a companion piece to 'Rick' though not necessary to read it .  Spoilers for 3x24 and 4x01.  Pls R&R!


**Ladies and gentlemen...Castle is back, and so it seems, am I. Just a short one to get my feet wet again. More of that introspective drabble that you've all come to know and...well, I'll let you put your own qualifier there. :)**

**For all intents and purposes, a companion piece to 'Rick' - though you don't need to read that one AT ALL. I feel like they're just sort of bookends of each other.**

**Disclaimer: Well, we finally got rid of Josh, which was totally MY idea - so I can claim partial ownership, right? No? Oh. Nevermind. :(**

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><p><strong>Kate<strong>

She's not sure that she can remember when it first started.

On second thought, who was she kidding?

The first time he spoke her name is etched into her mind, burned into her soul. It's the habitual use of her name that seems to have slowly snuck up on her, leaving her to wonder when he stopped seeing her as 'Detective Beckett' and started seeing just 'Kate'.

More importantly, she wonders whether the change means that he sees more or less - and it bothers her that she's no longer certain who's worth more, the detective or the woman.

The first time she hears her name spill from his lips, she's running away from her mother's killer, fleeing the precinct and the implications of a plastic knife and the smell of the Captain's scotch whiskey.

It's a mere 24 hours later when he touches her for the first time. A hand on the shoulder - a small gesture of comfort in the face of earth shattering pain, soul crushing guilt, and the ultimately unavoidable bullet sucking the life out of her mother's killer.

It's months before he utters that single syllable again. This time it's a voice reaching her through heat, smoke and pain, a beacon in the chaos.

There are only a handful of times that he uses her name in the following months and always it is spoken with as much reverence as concern. She thinks that he uses it to comfort her as much as to comfort himself.

It follows her as she stomps out of the precinct, simultaneously chasing and running from her mother's killer.

_"Kate!"_

It calls to her in the numbing cold, his arms around her as they both patiently wait for death in their frozen prison.

_"Stay with me, Kate."_

It's never used in vain - but instead, it's a privilege he values as a precious piece of herself that could disappear at any second.

And that, she realises, is exactly why he does it.

While she uses his name to push him away - to shove him firmly outside her walls, he uses hers to pull her back to him.

_"Castle, they killed my mother. What do you want me to do here?"_

_"Walk away. They're gonna kill you, Kate."_

She feels him trying to draw her in, to pull her away from the raggedy edge.

_"And what about you, Rick?"_

She pushes back. Pushes him out. Pushes him away.

_"You could be happy, Kate. You deserve to be happy, but you're afraid._

Even after she slams both the proverbial and the literal door in his face - he's still there. He's still calling her back to him. He's there, in an airport hangar, begging for her silence, trying to hold her together.

_"Ssssh, Kate. I'm sorry, Kate. I'm so sorry."_

His voice is the one she hears as she lay in that grassy field, her chest on fire, blackness chewing at the edges of her vision.

_"Kate. Stay with me, Kate. Don't leave me, please. I love you, Kate. I love you."_

It follows her into the dark.

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><p>It's been three months since that day. The day she died. The day she lived. The day he changed her life, whether she wanted him to or not. Above all, the day she stopped being the detective in his eyes.<p>

She's always 'Kate' when they're alone now.

_"Take it easy, Kate. Take it easy. You've got this."_

He uses it to tether her, to anchor her, to pull her back in from that that ledge she has so precariously perched herself on.

It is the name he uses when he speaks to her now, not just some of the time, but all of the time. And it's no longer about what his use of her name mean to her - it's about what it means to him. He's calling her back, trying to be her beacon just as he always has. But where once every few months used to be enough, now it's once an hour.

It is this thought that drives back to her therapist's office, her legs pulled up in front of her as if to ward off the horrors of her world.

He thinks that he's losing her. She's not sure that she's not already lost.

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><p><strong>There you have it folks. Not much by way of plot. Love it? Hate it? Let me know! And please, if you seriously can't handle another introspective piece from me, tell me! I enjoy them, but perhaps a little too much ^_^.<strong>

**Thanks for reading!**

**Cheers!**


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